Interim Report 1-9/2025, 31 October 2025:
The following outlook information is based on materials published by the Confederation of Finnish Industries EK and Statistics Finland.
Uncertainties in the world economy still continue as a result of trade policy disputes, among other things. Uncertainties are increased by, for example, the war in Ukraine and instability in the Middle East. The world economy is now projected to grow by 3.2 percent in 2025 and growth in the euro area is expected to be 1.2 percent.
This year, the Finnish economy has developed slowly, but the economic outlook for Finnish companies has slightly improved since the summer. While the situation in many industries remains weaker than average, expectations about the future are cautiously optimistic. However, confidence in the economy among companies has weakened in most industries. The confidence indicator for retail trade also weakened slightly but remained above the long-term average. Retail sales have continued to be nearly on par with the earlier months and sales expectations for the coming months are still moderately positive. Consumer confidence remained at low level and continues to be clearly below the long-term average. Consumers’ estimates concerning the current state of their personal finances weakened. Consumers’ expectations for the future of their personal finances and their expectations for the development of the Finnish economy were unchanged but muted. Estimates concerning inflation and expectations for its future development were down but remained at a high level.
(Confederation of Finnish Industries EK: Business Tendency Survey, October 2025; Confidence Indicators, October 2025. Statistics Finland: Consumer Confidence, October 2025.)
The working-day-adjusted turnover of Finnish retail trade increased by 0.9 percent in August compared to the previous year, but the volume of sales decreased by 1.2 percent. The cumulative working-day-adjusted turnover of retail trade in the January–August period increased by 1.1 percent while the volume of sales decreased by 1.1 percent.
(Statistics Finland: Turnover of Trade, August 2025.)